Trek's Old Stomping Grounds

In our original plans, we wanted to take the kids to the Berlin Zoo, but because of the marathon

#1: we couldn't get to it

#2: it was so late it was almost closed.

So, we opted for a plan B. When Trek served his mission in Northern Germany, one of his areas fell into the category of "East Germany." His very favorite area on his mission was in Halberstadt & Wernigerode which was only 3 hours from Berlin. It was only 30 minutes out of our way home, so we decided to go check it out.

Trek got SO excited when he saw the skyline of Halberstadt. He was like a kid at Christmas! I can't imagine what it would be like to come back to Spangdahlem ten years from now, thinking I'd never see it again. That's what it was like for him. We drove through Halberstadt & went on to Wernigerode. Wernigerode is situated in the Harz Mountains where the Grimms Brothers wrote their classic fairy tales. At the top of Wernigerode sits a beautiful medieval castle (said to be the inspiration for fairy tales such as cinderella, rapunzel, & sleeping beauty). We were SO happy we got there before the sun went down so we could see the castle in her majesty. We didn't get to go inside, but it was fun seeing it.

Then we walked down to the rathaus there in Wernigerode. Trek was giddy the whole time. I could tell he was loving being back in his old stomping grounds. The rathaus was gorgeous. It's the first one I've seen that is painted almost a peach color (which happens to be my favorite color). The town was so cute & so fun that we decided that we want to go back in October. That way we can tour the castle & spend more time in the village. We could only stay a couple hours because we had to get home.

We left Wernigerode around 9:00 pm & drove all night long. We finally got home around 2:30 am. After totaling it all up we learned that our trip was a total of 40 hours. 20 hours of that was driving, 7 hours was sleeping, & the rest was touring some of the coolest places on earth. What an AWESOME trip!